Detailed Action
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
The Office Action is in response to claims filed on 4/9/2026 where claims 1-20 are pending and ready for examination.
In the event the determination of the status of the application as subject to AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103 (or as subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103) is incorrect, any correction of the statutory basis (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) for the rejection will not be considered a new ground of rejection if the prior art relied upon, and the rationale supporting the rejection, would be the same under either status.
The examiner has reviewed the Applicant’s arguments submitted on 4/9/2206. The examiner has withdrawn the 35 USC 112b rejection.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 103 which forms the basis for all obviousness rejections set forth in this Office action:
A patent for a claimed invention may not be obtained, notwithstanding that the claimed invention is not identically disclosed as set forth in section 102, if the differences between the claimed invention and the prior art are such that the claimed invention as a whole would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which the claimed invention pertains. Patentability shall not be negated by the manner in which the invention was made.
Claims 1-2, 9, 11-14, 16 – 21, and 28 are rejected under 35 USC 103 as being unpatentable over Gan (EP 4358431) in view of Luo (US 20180098263)
Regarding claim 1, Luo discloses a method comprising:
receiving at a device, a first plurality of data packets (Gan; The receiver/receive end receives SL PDUs form the transmit end ([0176])4. SLC PDUs are the data units/packets being received. Item 4 ({0176]) also says “each time the transmit end sends an SLC PDU ...” So over repeated operation, the receive end receives a plurality of SLC PDUs/data packets);
transmitting, by the device, a plurality of acknowledgement packets, one acknowledgment packet per data packet (Gan; Gan teaches ([0176]) the receive end sends feedback immediately after receiving an SLC PDU. Item 4 ([0176]) “Each time the transmit end sends an SLC PDU, the transmit end waits for an ACK from the receive end”) which equates to one CK for each SLC PDU; Accordingly, for each received SLC PDU, the received end sends an ACK feedback which is equivalent to plurality of acknowledgment packets, one per data packet;) and
after transmitting the plurality of acknowledgment packets, negotiating, by the device, to perform muti-packet acknowledgment (Gan; Gan teaches after operating in stop and wait mode where the receive and sends an ACK for each received SLC PDU, the terminal negotiates a feedback mode with the network device, and the negotiated feedback mode may be the parallel feedback mode in which the receive end accumulates multiple SLC PDUSs and then seeds feedback. That is negotiating to perform multi-packet acknowledgement;
Gan teaches stop and wait feedback mode where each received SLC PDU is individually acknowledged. The reference also teaches parallel feedback mode where multiple received SLC PDUs are accumulated before feedback is sent. Gan then teaches that the terminal negotiates with the network device about a feedback mode. Because the negotiated feed mode includes the parallel feedback mode, the negotiation si to perform multi-packet acknowledgement;
see e.g. [0176] “... In parallel feedback mode, after receiving the SLC PUD sent by the transmit end , the receive end accumulates received SLC PDUs of a specific amount of data, and then sends the feedback information to the transmit end ...”
See e.g. [0202] “Therefore, the transmit end may negotiate the acknowledgment mode with the receive end based on the total frame quantity field and the frame sequence number filed in the frame header information of the data frame. In this way, when the transmit end negotiates the acknowledgment mode with the receive end, additional frame header overheads may not be required”)
As evidence of the rationale above, Luo discloses:
multi packet acknowledgement (Luo;
see e.g. [0086] In summary, the central node (hub) 721 acknowledges the reception of multiple packets 706, 708, 710, 712 . . . 771 from different nodes 750, 752, 754, 756 . . . 770 together by a single ACK packet 904 as shown in FIG. 10. We call this acknowledgment mechanism as multi-node, multi-packet, block acknowledgment mechanism)
Therefore it would have been prima facie obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate Luo’s multi packet acknowledgement element. The motivation being the combined solution provides for implementing a known technique resulting in increased efficiencies of managing network traffic.
Regarding claim 2, Gan in view of Luo disclose the method of claim 1, wherein a first acknowledgment packet of the plurality of acknowledgment packets comprises a non-empty data packet (Gan; see e.g. [0176], [0202}).
Therefore it would have been prima facie obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate Luo’s multi packet acknowledgement element. The motivation being the combined solution provides for implementing a known technique resulting in increased efficiencies of managing network traffic
Regarding claim 9, Gan in view of Luo disclose The method of claim 1, further comprising:
after negotiating to perform multi-packet acknowledgment, receiving, by the device, a second plurality of packets, wherein the second plurality of packets includes respective unique identifiers for each packet of the second plurality of packets (Gan; see e.g. [0176], [0202]
The Examiner notes frame sequence number is equivalent to unique identifiers); and
transmitting a first acknowledgment packet that acknowledges multiple packets of the second plurality of packets according to the respective unique identifiers (Gan;
see e.g. [0176], [0202]) .
Therefore it would have been prima facie obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate Luo’s multi packet acknowledgement element. The motivation being the combined solution provides for implementing a known technique resulting in increased efficiencies of managing network traffic
Regarding claim 11. Gan in view of Luo disclose the method of claim 9, wherein Gan does transmitting a first acknowledgment packet acknowledges (Ack) or not acknowledges (NACK) each data packet of the second plurality of packets according to the respective unique identifiers (The combined solution per Gan; see e.g. [0178], [0202])).
Therefore it would have been prima facie obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate Luo’s multi packet acknowledgement element. The motivation being the combined solution provides for implementing a known technique resulting in increased efficiencies of managing network traffic
Regarding claim 12, Gan in view of Luo disclose the method of claim 9, wherein transmitting the first acknowledgement packet comprises using a bitmap (Gan;
See e.g. [0223] “... bitmap ...”).
Therefore it would have been prima facie obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate Luo’s multi packet acknowledgement element. The motivation being the combined solution provides for implementing a known technique resulting in increased efficiencies of managing network traffic
Regarding claim 13, Gem in view of Luo disclose the method of claim 9, wherein transmitting the first acknowledgement packet comprises transmitting the first acknowledgement packet along with additional data (Gan; Per Gan there is additional data comprising packet control metadata associated the packet that is necessarily present for packet to reach its intended destination;
See e.g. [0202]).
Therefore it would have been prima facie obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate Luo’s multi packet acknowledgement element. The motivation being the combined solution provides for implementing a known technique resulting in increased efficiencies of managing network traffic
Regarding claim 14, Gan in view of Luo discloses the method of claim 9, wherein the first acknowledgment packet requests transmission of a third plurality of packets from the device to the (Gan; see e.g. Table 2).
Therefore it would have been prima facie obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate Luo’s multi packet acknowledgement element. The motivation being the combined solution provides for implementing a known technique resulting in increased efficiencies of managing network traffic
Regarding claim 16, Gan in view of Luo disclose the method of claim 1, further comprising: after negotiating to perform multi-packet acknowledgment, begin counting packets in a second plurality of packets (Gan; see e..g [0232], [0233], Table 2); and
acknowledging the second plurality of packets, including transmitting a first acknowledgment packet that indicates a number of packets received of the second plurality of packets (Gan; see e.g. [0232], [0233], Table 2).
Therefore it would have been prima facie obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate Luo’s multi packet acknowledgement element. The motivation being the combined solution provides for implementing a known technique resulting in increased efficiencies of managing network traffic
Regarding claim 17, Gan in view of Luo disclose the method of claim 16, wherein the number of packets received is less than a quantity of the second plurality of packets, and wherein the first acknowledgment packet requests retransmission of a missing packet (Gan; see e.g. [0232] – [0233], Table 2; Per Gan if the ACK bitmap identifies which SLC PDUs were received out of the total frame quantity, then any unreceived bitmap position necessarily identifies a retransmission protocol, that missing indication functions as the retransmission request)
Therefore it would have been prima facie obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate Luo’s multi packet acknowledgement element. The motivation being the combined solution provides for implementing a known technique resulting in increased efficiencies of managing network traffic
Regarding claim 18, Gan in view of Luo disclose the method of claim 1, wherein the first device comprises is a central device of a wireless network, and wherein the central device transmits an initial packet as part of a communication link between the device and another device, wherein the another device is a peripheral device (The combined solution per Luo; see e.g. Luo Fig. 8 and [0069] “... sensor ...”).
Therefore it would have been prima facie obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate Luo’s multi packet acknowledgement element. The motivation being the combined solution provides for implementing a known technique resulting in increased efficiencies of managing network traffic
Regarding claim 19, Gan in view of Luo disclose the method of claim 1, wherein the device is a peripheral device of a wireless network, and wherein the another device transmits an initial packet as part of a communication link between the device and the another device, wherein the another device is a central device of the wireless network (The combined solution per Luo; see e.g. Luo Fig. 8 and [0069] “... sensor ...”)..
Therefore it would have been prima facie obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate Luo’s multi packet acknowledgement element. The motivation being the combined solution provides for implementing a known technique resulting in increased efficiencies of managing network traffic
Regarding claim 20. Gan in view of Luo disclose the method of claim 1, wherein negotiating to perform multi- packet acknowledgment comprises indicating that the device begin performing multi-packet acknowledgment for subsequent transmissions of packets ( Gan; see e.g. [0178], [0202], Table 2).
Therefore it would have been prima facie obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate Luo’s multi packet acknowledgement element. The motivation being the combined solution provides for implementing a known technique resulting in increased efficiencies of managing network traffic
Regarding claim 21., Gan in view of Luo disclose the method of claim 20, wherein indicating that the device begin performing multi-packet acknowledgment for subsequent transmissions of packets comprises requesting that the device perform multi-packet acknowledgement for every N packets received, N being a positive integer greater than 1 (Gan, see e.g. [0176]).
Therefore it would have been prima facie obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate Luo’s multi packet acknowledgement element. The motivation being the combined solution provides for implementing a known technique resulting in increased efficiencies of managing network traffic
Regarding claim 28, Gan in view of Luo disclose the method of claim 1, wherein the first plurality of data packets comprise layer 2 packets transmitted over the air (The combined solution per Luo (see e.g. [0018])
Therefore it would have been prima facie obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate Luo’s multi packet acknowledgement element. The motivation being the combined solution provides for implementing a known technique resulting in increased efficiencies of managing network traffic
Claims 3 and 4 are rejected under 35 USC 103 as being unpatentable over Gan in view of Luo and in further view of Kim (US 20180069678)
Regarding claim 3, Gan in view of Luo disclose the method of claim 1, Gan does not expressly disclose wherein a first acknowledgment packet of the plurality of acknowledgment packets comprises an empty packet.
Kim discloses:
wherein a first acknowledgment packet of the first plurality of acknowledgment packets comprises an empty packet (Kim;
see e.g. Table 3 “... his value of the Ack Policy subfield is not used for QoS Data frames with a TID for which a block ack agreement exists. The Ack Policy subfield for group addressed QoS Null (no data) frames is set to this value. ...”)
Therefore it would have been prima facie obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate Kim’s empty packet. The motivation being the combined solution provides for implementing a known technique resulting in increased efficiencies of managing network traffic.
Therefore it would have been prima facie obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate Luo’s multi packet acknowledgement element. The motivation being the combined solution provides for implementing a known technique resulting in increased efficiencies of managing network traffic.
Regarding claim 4, Gan in view of Luo and in further view of Kim disclose the method of claim 3, Gan does not expressly disclose wherein a number of bits of the empty packet is 10 octets.
However the examiner takes Official Notice that said feature is well known and conventional in the art and it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the to implement said feature to realize the benefits of utilizing said particular size to increase efficiencies of packet processing resources.
Therefore it would have been prima facie obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate Luo’s multi packet acknowledgement element. The motivation being the combined solution provides for implementing a known technique resulting in increased efficiencies of managing network traffic
Claims 5 and 6 are rejected under 35 USC 103 as being unpatentable over Gan in view of Luo and in further view of Zhu (US 20230019061)
Regarding claim 5, Gan in view of Luo disclose the method of claim 1, wherein negotiating to perform multi-packet acknowledgment is performed in response to determining that a quality of a communication link between the t device and another device (Gan; see e.g. [0176]), Gan does not expressly disclose:
is above a predetermined threshold.
Zhu discloses:
is above a predetermined threshold (Zhu;
see e.g. [0058] “ ... A relatively low SNR may correspond to unfavorable radio link conditions for the UE (e.g., a radio link quality between the UE and the base station does not satisfy a threshold). In some aspects, the SNR may correspond to a serving beam associated with the UE)
Therefore it would have been prima facie obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate Zhu’s SNR threshold scheme. The motivation being the combined solution provides for implementing a known technique resulting in increased efficiencies of managing network traffic.
Therefore it would have been prima facie obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate Luo’s multi packet acknowledgement element. The motivation being the combined solution provides for implementing a known technique resulting in increased efficiencies of managing network traffic.
Regarding claim 6, Gan in view of Luo and in further view of Zhu disclose the method of claim 5, wherein the predetermined threshold is a signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) threshold associated with the communication link , and wherein negotiating to perform multi-packet acknowledgment comprises (The combined solution per Gan ([01676], [0202]) in conjunction with Zhu’s SNR threshold)
Therefore it would have been prima facie obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate Zhu’s SNR threshold scheme. The motivation being the combined solution provides for implementing a known technique resulting in increased efficiencies of managing network traffic.
Therefore it would have been prima facie obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate Luo’s multi packet acknowledgement element. The motivation being the combined solution provides for implementing a known technique resulting in increased efficiencies of managing network traffic.
Claim 7 is rejected under 35 USC 103 ss being unpatentable over Gan in view of Luo and in further view of Zhu and in further view of Wang (US 20210391897)
Regarding claim 7, Gan in view of Luo and in further view of Zhu disclose the method of claim 5,Gan does not expressly disclose wherein the predetermined threshold is a received signal strength indicator (RSSI) threshold, and wherein negotiating to perform multi- packet acknowledgment comprises negotiating to perform multi-packet acknowledgment in response to an RSSI associated with the first plurality of data packets being higher than the RSSI threshold.
Wang discloses:
disclose wherein the predetermined threshold is a received signal strength indicator (RSSI) threshold (Wang;
see e.g. [0058] “... link-quality metric to determine that a particular candidate beam will be satisfactory (e.g., a link-quality metric value that is greater than a threshold for a Received Signal Strength Indicator (RSSI) ...”)
Therefore it would have been prima facie obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate Wang’s RSSI scheme. The motivation being that the combined solution provides for implementing a known technique resulting in increased efficiencies of managing network traffic.
Gan in view of Luo and in further view of Zhu and in further view of Wang disclose:
wherein the predetermined threshold is a received signal strength indicator (RSSI) threshold, and wherein negotiating to perform multi- packet acknowledgment with the second device comprises negotiating to perform multi-packet acknowledgment with the second device in response to an RSSI associated with the first plurality of data packets being higher than the RSSI threshold (The combined solution per Gan ([0176], [0202]) and Wang’s RSSI threshold scheme)
Therefore it would have been prima facie obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate Luo’s multi packet acknowledgement element. The motivation being the combined solution provides for implementing a known technique resulting in increased efficiencies of managing network traffic
Claim 8 is rejected under 35 USC 103 as being unpatentable over Gan in view of Luo and in further view of Zhu and in further view of Al Masri (US 20220046514)
Regarding claim 8, Gan in view of Luo and in further view of Zhu disclose the method of claim 5, Gan does not expressly disclose wherein the predetermined threshold is a bit error rate (BER) threshold, and wherein negotiating to perform multi-packet acknowledgment comprises negotiating to perform multi-packet acknowledgment in response to a BER associated with the first plurality of data packets being lower than the BER threshold.
Al Masri discloses:
wherein the predetermined threshold is a bit error rate (BER) threshold (Al Masri;
[0020] The step of identifying the link quality may compare the link quality metric received from the advertisement of the at least one neighbor with a high threshold and a low threshold. The link quality metric may comprise: marking the link quality as high when the link quality metric exceeds the high threshold; marking the link quality as low when the link quality metric falls below the low threshold; marking the link quality as high when the link quality metric falls below the high threshold, and before the link quality metric falls below the low threshold; marking the link quality as low when the link quality metric rises above the low threshold, and before the link quality metric exceeds the high threshold; and marking the link quality as low if a timeout timer for receiving the advertisement expires before receiving a new advertisement from the at least one neighbor.
[0021] The link quality metric may be selected from at least one of: a received signal strength indicator (RSSI), a Bit Error Rate (BER), a Signal to Noise Ratio (SNR), a Signal to Noise and Interference Ratio (SNIR), and any combination thereof.
[0022] The low threshold may be selected to be higher than a sensitivity of a recipient node).
Therefore it would have been prima facie obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate Al-Masri’s BER element. The motivation being the combined solution provides for incorporating a known technique resulting in increase efficiencies of managing network traffic.
Gan in view of Luo and in further view of Zhu and in further view of Al Masri disclose:
wherein the predetermined threshold is a bit error rate (BER) threshold, and wherein negotiating to perform multi-packet acknowledgment comprises negotiating to perform multi-packet acknowledgment in response to a BER associated with the first plurality of data packets being lower than the BER threshold (The combined solution per Gan ([0176], [0202] and Al Masri).
Therefore it would have been prima facie obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate Luo’s multi packet acknowledgement element. The motivation being the combined solution provides for implementing a known technique resulting in increased efficiencies of managing network traffic
Claim 10 is rejected under 35 USC 103 as being unpatentable over Gan in view of Luo and in further view of Koskinen (US 20240163031)
Regarding claim 10, Gan in view of Luo disclose the method of claim 9, Gan does not expressly disclose further comprising:
determining that a missing packet of the second plurality of packets was not received by the device based on the unique identifiers of the first plurality of data packets, and, in response requesting retransmission of the missing packet.
Koskinen discloses:
determining that a missing packet of the second plurality of packets was not received by the device, and, in response requesting retransmission of the missing packet (Koskinen;
see e.g. [0003] “There are various occasions for the Acknowledged Mode which relate to polling for acknowledgement feedback (ACK/NACK) about correctly received and missing data packets and keeping record of the number of retransmissions of a given packet (LTE-RLC PDU or NR-RLC SDU)”)
Therefore it would have been prima facie obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate Koskinen’s retransmission scheme. The motivation being the combined solution provides for implementing a known technique resulting in increased efficiencies of managing network traffic.
Gan in view of Luo and in further view of Koskinen disclose:
determining that a missing packet of the second plurality of packets was not received by the device based on the unique identifiers of the first plurality of data packets, and, in response requesting retransmission of the missing packet (The combined solution per Koskinen and Gan’s frame sequence identifiers)
Therefore it would have been prima facie obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate Luo’s multi packet acknowledgement element. The motivation being the combined solution provides for implementing a known technique resulting in increased efficiencies of managing network traffic
Claim 15 is rejected under 35 USC 103 as being unpatentable over Gan in view of Luo and in further view of Ho (US 20200177311)
Regarding claim 15, Gan in view of Luo disclose the method of claim 9, Gan does not expressly disclose wherein the second plurality of packets omits inter-frame spacing.
HO discloses:
wherein the second plurality of packets omits inter-frame spacing ( Ho;
[0334] The channel 2450 may be treated as carrying a series of data units, which may but do not necessarily correspond directly to Internet Protocol (IP) packets. For example, in some implementations multiple data units are concatenated into an IP packet, while in other implementations, each data unit uses a separate IP packet or only part of an IP packet. It should be understood that in yet other implementations, the Internet Protocol is not used—the techniques described below do not depend on the method of passing the data units over the channel 2450.)
Therefore it would have been prima facie obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate Ho’s concatenation scheme. The motivation being the combined solution provides for implanting a known technique resulting in increased efficiencies of managing network traffic.
Therefore it would have been prima facie obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate Luo’s multi packet acknowledgement element. The motivation being the combined solution provides for implementing a known technique resulting in increased efficiencies of managing network traffic
Claims 22 and 23 are rejected under 35 USC 103 as being unpatentable over Gan in view of Luo and in further view of Viger (US 20220264652)
Regarding claim 22, Gan in view of Luo disclose the method of claim 21, Gan does not expressly disclose further comprising:
before receiving, by the device, N packets from a last multi-packet acknowledgement, receiving an early acknowledgement request; and
in response to receiving the early acknowledgement request, providing, by the device, an acknowledgement packet to acknowledge each packet received from the last multi-packet acknowledgement.
Viger discloses:
receiving an early acknowledgement request (Viger;
[0185] The format 530b has been introduced for the Pre-Association acknowledgment context of 802.11 ax, to make it possible for the AP to acknowledge pre-association Management frames for multiple unassociated non-AP stations using a single Multi-STA BA frame. In other words, the AP that receives a request management frame requiring an acknowledgment prior to association may generate a Multi-STA BA frame using the format 530b.);
Therefore it would have been prima facie obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate Viger’s scheme. The motivation being the combined solution provides for implementing a known technique resulting in increased efficiencies in managing network traffic.
Gan in view of Luo and in further view of Viger disclose:
before receiving, by the device, N packets from a last multi-packet acknowledgement, receiving an early acknowledgement request (The combined solution per Viger an and Gan ([0176]); and
in response to receiving the early acknowledgement request, providing, by the device, an acknowledgement packet to acknowledge each packet received from the last multi-packet acknowledgement (The combined solution per Viger an and Gan ([0176]).
Therefore it would have been prima facie obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate Luo’s multi packet acknowledgement element. The motivation being the combined solution provides for implementing a known technique resulting in increased efficiencies of managing network traffic
Regarding claim 23, Gan in view of Luo disclose the method of claim 1, wherein negotiating to perform multi- packet acknowledgment comprises determining a quantity of packets to be acknowledged with a single acknowledgment packet (Gan; [0176]), the method further comprising:
receiving a second plurality of packets, wherein the second plurality of packets is less than the quantity (Gan; [0176]);
Gan does not expressly disclose:
receiving a request to acknowledge the second plurality of packets; and
transmitting a first acknowledgment packet to the second device, wherein the first acknowledgment packet acknowledges only the second plurality of packets.
Viger discloses:
receiving a request to acknowledge packets (Viger;
See e.g. [0185] The format 530b has been introduced for the Pre-Association acknowledgment context of 802.11 ax, to make it possible for the AP to acknowledge pre-association Management frames for multiple unassociated non-AP stations using a single Multi-STA BA frame. In other words, the AP that receives a request management frame requiring an acknowledgment prior to association may Ganerate a Multi-STA BA frame using the format 530b.);
Transmitting an acknowledgement packet in response (Viger; see e.g. [0185])
Therefore it would have been prima facie obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate Viger’s scheme. The motivation being the combined solution provides for implementing a known technique resulting in increased efficiencies of managing network traffic.
Gan in view of Luo and in further view of Viger disclose:
receiving a request to acknowledge the second plurality of packets (The combined solution per Viger and Gan ([0176]); and
transmitting a first acknowledgment packet to the second device, wherein the first acknowledgment packet acknowledges only the second plurality of packets (The combined solution per Viger and Gan ([0176].
Therefore it would have been prima facie obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate Luo’s multi packet acknowledgement element. The motivation being the combined solution provides for implementing a known technique resulting in increased efficiencies of managing network traffic
Claim 24 is rejected under 35 USC as being unpatentable over Gan in view of Luo and in further view of Kim
Regarding claim 24, Gan in view of Luo disclose the method of claim 1the method further comprising:
after negotiating to perform multi-packet acknowledgment, receiving, by the first device, a second plurality of packets from the second device (Gan; ([0176]); and
transmitting a second acknowledgment packet to the second device, wherein the second acknowledgment packet acknowledges multiple packets within the second plurality of packets, and wherein the second acknowledgment packet includes a larger quantity of bits than the first acknowledgment packet (Gan; [0176],[0223]) .
Gan does not expressly disclose:
wherein a first acknowledgment packet of the first plurality of acknowledgment packets comprises an empty packet,
However Kim discloses:
wherein a first acknowledgment packet of the first plurality of acknowledgment packets comprises an empty packet (Kim;
see e.g. Table 3 “... his value of the Ack Policy subfield is not used for QoS Data frames with a TID for which a block ack agreement exists. The Ack Policy subfield for group addressed QoS Null (no data) frames is set to this value. ...”)
Therefore it would have been prima facie obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate Kim’s empty packet. The motivation being the combined solution provides for implementing a known technique resulting in increased efficiencies of managing network traffic.
Therefore it would have been prima facie obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate Luo’s multi packet acknowledgement element. The motivation being the combined solution provides for implementing a known technique resulting in increased efficiencies of managing network traffic
Claim 25 is rejected under 35 USC 103 as being unpatentable over Gan in view of Luo and in further view of Prevost
Regarding claim 25, Gan in view of Luo disclose the method of claim 1, Gan does not expressly disclose wherein a communication link between the device and another device is a Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) communication link.
Prevost discloses:
wherein a communication link between the device and another device is a Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) communication link (Prevost;
[0025] FIG. 5 is a diagram of an example of a PAC system that authenticates access using a smartphone. In this example, the access control portal is a turnstile 540. The smartphone 542 emits a low energy level beacon signal in a low energy broadcast mode. For example, the smartphone 542 may support background Bluetooth™ Low Energy (BLE) advertising when the smartphone is configured as a Bluetooth™ peripheral device. BLE is only an example and other wireless protocols either long range or short range can be used. The term beacon is intended to include all wireless signals that can potentially serve the functions of the beacon described herein.
[0053] Antenna 806 can correspond to one or multiple antennas and can be configured to provide for wireless communications between device 800 and another device. Antenna(s) 806 can be arranged to operate using one or more wireless communication protocols and operating frequencies including, but not limited to, the IEEE 802.15.1, Bluetooth, Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE), near field communications (NFC), ZigBee, GSM, CDMA, Wi-Fi, RF, UWB, and the like. In an example, antenna 806 may include one or more antennas arranged to operate using UWB for in band activity/communication and Bluetooth (e.g., BLE) for out-of-band (OOB) activity/communication. However, any RFID or personal area network (PAN) technologies, such as the IEEE 802.15.1, near field communications (NFC), ZigBee, GSM, CDMA, Wi-Fi, etc., may alternatively or additionally be used for the OOB activity/communication described herein. ).
Therefore it would have been prima facie obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate Prevost’s BLE protocol. The motivation being the combined solution provides for incorporating a known technique resulting in increased efficiencies of delivering network traffic.
Therefore it would have been prima facie obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate Luo’s multi packet acknowledgement element. The motivation being the combined solution provides for implementing a known technique resulting in increased efficiencies of managing network traffic
Claim 26 is rejected under 35 USC 103 as being unpatentable over Gan in view of Luo and in further view of He (US 20200244528)
Regarding claim 26, Gan in view of Luo disclose the method of claim 1, Gan does not expressly disclose negotiating to perform multi-packet acknowledgment is performed in response to determining that a throughput of a communication link between the device and the another device is above a predetermined threshold.
He discloses:
in response to determining that a throughput of a communication link between the device and the another device is above a predetermined threshold (He;
see e..g [0082] “... the link quality or traffic load for the UE has changed when a difference between a first traffic rate (e.g., a maximum throughput) based on an average MCS and a number of configured transmission/reception occasions differs from a second traffic rate (e.g., an actual data rate) based on average received data satisfies a threshold ...”)
Therefore it would have been prima facie obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate He’s threshold scheme. The motivation being the combined solution provides for implanting a known technique resulting in increased efficiencies in delivering network traffic.
Gan in view of Luo and in further view of He disclose:
negotiating to perform multi-packet acknowledgment is performed in response to determining that a throughput of a communication link between the device and the another device is above a predetermined threshold (The combined solution per Gan ([0176] and He))
Therefore it would have been prima facie obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate Luo’s multi packet acknowledgement element. The motivation being the combined solution provides for implementing a known technique resulting in increased efficiencies of managing network traffic
Claim 27 is rejected under 35 USC 103 as being unpatentable over Gan in view of Luo and in further view of Kumagai (US 2023037909)
Regarding claim 27. Gan in view of Luo disclose the method of claim 1, Gan does not expressly disclose wherein negotiating to perform multi-packet acknowledgment is performed in response to determining that an instruction from a higher layer has been received.
Kumagai discloses:
in response to determining that an instruction from a higher layer has been received (Kumagai;
see e.g. [0072] “... Alternatively, conditions such as a transmission timing of the HARQ-ACK (or PUCCH) (for example, K0) may be configured by higher layer signaling (for example, dl-DataToUL-ACK”)
Therefore it would have been prima facie obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate Kumagai’s high layer signaling. The motivation being the combined solution provides for implanting a known technique resulting in increased efficiencies of delivering network traffic.
Gan in view of Luo and in further view of Kumagai disclose:
wherein negotiating to perform multi-packet acknowledgment is performed in response to determining that an instruction from a higher layer has been received (The combined solution per Gan and Kumagai).
Therefore it would have been prima facie obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate Luo’s multi packet acknowledgement element. The motivation being the combined solution provides for implementing a known technique resulting in increased efficiencies of managing network traffic
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the Examiner should be directed to TODD L. BARKER whose telephone number is (571) 270 0257. The Examiner can normally be reached on Monday through Friday, 7:30am to 5:00pm.
If attempts to reach the Examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the Examiner's supervisor Vivek Srivastava can be reached on (571) 272 7304.
/TODD L BARKER/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2449
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